Why we don't use Galileo's last name (2009) • Hacker News Board

Re: Why we don't use Galileo's last name (2009)

#51

Post by dredmorbius » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 6:56 AM UTC

ddlatham wrote: post #24

dredmorbius wrote: post #5

Naming is an interesting thing. I'm wrestling with it from another contex presently. I'm reminded of the lines from Homer. in which the hero (himself given at least two names within the text, including one in its title) unambiguously (and rather rashly as it happens) identifies himself to Polyphemus: Cyclops, if any man of mortal birth Note thine unseemly blindness and inquire The occasion, tell him that Laertes' son…

And I'm reminded of a time in college when my roommate, who majored in classics, came home from class today and told me that they discussed a theory that the Iliad and Odyssey, were not actually written by Homer, but rather by a different place poet who happened to have the same name. "So they were actually written by Homer then?" I thought it hilarious, because the only identity of Homer I knew was the guy who wrote…

GEPs -- Generico-Eponymic Paradoxes

http://www.cs.indiana.edu/hyplan/tanaka/GEB/GEPs.html

"Homer's epics weren't written by him, but by someone else of the same name."

"Shakespeare's plays weren't written by him, but by someone else of the same name."

American TV commercial for Smucker's (maker of jelly) ---

"With a name like Smucker's, it's got to be good".

at a fast-food restaurant:

"You want the Coke or some other Coke?"

Also: Douglas R. Hofstadter, "Shakespeare's plays weren't written by him, but by someone else of the same name":

https://www.worldcat.org/title/shakespeares-plays-werent-wri...

But wait, there's more!

http://web.archive.org/web/20060913231744/http://www.cs.indi...

Re: Why we don't use Galileo's last name (2009)

#52

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 6:57 AM UTC

Thorrez wrote: post #47

DoreenMichele wrote: post #42

I worked in insurance for over five years. One of the more common reasons we had to send out HIPAA notification letters was due to relatives in the same city with similar or identical names getting claims processed under the wrong policy. These were very often two male relatives -- father and son, twin brothers, cousins. They sometimes even lived on the same street. There's also this story about two women with the sa…

> Thanks to my ex and I both having first-hand experience with family members having similar names, we both agreed on making sure our children had names that wouldn't cause that type of issue for them. My aunt was in that same position, tired of her name being confused with other people in the family. So she named her 3 daughters 3 names unique from anyone in the family. Then 3 of her brothers in law married 3 women…

[deleted]

Re: Why we don't use Galileo's last name (2009)

#53

Post by mindcrime » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 7:07 AM UTC

DoreenMichele wrote: post #42

I worked in insurance for over five years. One of the more common reasons we had to send out HIPAA notification letters was due to relatives in the same city with similar or identical names getting claims processed under the wrong policy. These were very often two male relatives -- father and son, twin brothers, cousins. They sometimes even lived on the same street. There's also this story about two women with the sa…

Very true. I've experienced a bit of this first-hand.

Growing up, I, my father, and my paternal grandfather all shared the same first name and last name, and all lived within a couple of miles of each other (my father and I obviously lived in the same residence a big chunk of my childhood, and grandpa lived just a short hop away). Our mail (and gosh knows what else) got mixed up all the time.

To make it even worse, I'm one of those people who chooses to use my middle name, not my first name, as my primary name. So while "legal" correspondence often comes addressed one way, sometimes even that gets mixed up, and phone calls are always weird when I answer "Hi, this is Phil" and the person on the other end goes "Oh, sorry, I was calling for $FIRST_NAME".

And to make this whole story even weirder, my maternal grandfather's middle name (which is what he went by) was the same as the first name shared by me, my dad, and my paternal grand-father. So yeah, we had four family members in a very small area, sharing confusingly similar names.

Naming stuff definitely gets weird.

Re: Why we don't use Galileo's last name (2009)

#54

Post by gus_massa » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 7:10 AM UTC

nwatson wrote: post #2

Aahhh, this is the Brazilian football/soccer player naming phenomenon [1] : Zico, Ronaldinho, Sócrates, Pelé, Ronaldo, Edú, Falcão ... ( A Zico free kick in particular was such a joy to watch. ) [1] https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2006/06/how-brazilian-so...

Note that (if I counted correctly) 2 of them are the official first name, 2 are some variation of the first name and 3 are nicknames unrelated to the first or family name.

Re: Why we don't use Galileo's last name (2009)

#55

Post by thaumasiotes » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 7:12 AM UTC

dredmorbius wrote: post #5

Naming is an interesting thing. I'm wrestling with it from another contex presently. I'm reminded of the lines from Homer. in which the hero (himself given at least two names within the text, including one in its title) unambiguously (and rather rashly as it happens) identifies himself to Polyphemus: Cyclops, if any man of mortal birth Note thine unseemly blindness and inquire The occasion, tell him that Laertes' son…

> Ancestry, name, deeds, place.

Those are of course all there in the Greek, but the order is different:

    Κύκλωψ, αἴ κέν τίς σε καταθνητῶν ἀνθρώπων
    ὀφθαλμοῦ εἴρηται ἀεικελίην ἀλαωτύν,
    φάσθαι Ὀδυσσῆα πτολιπόρθιον ἐξαλαῶσαι,
    υἱὸν Λαέρτεω, Ἰθάκῃ ἔνι οἰκί᾽ ἔχοντα.

Cyclops, if any mortal man should ask you about the shameful blinding of [your] eye, declare Odysseus the city-sacker to have blinded [you], the son of Laertes, [who has] a home in Ithaca.

Name, deeds, ancestry, place.

On the other hand, it's quite normal in Homer for a character to be identified solely by ancestry, even where that information cannot unambiguously identify anyone. So Menelaus and Agamemnon, who are brothers, are both commonly referred to as Atreides ("the son of Atreus").

Re: Why we don't use Galileo's last name (2009)

#56

Post by dredmorbius » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 7:23 AM UTC

DoreenMichele wrote: post #42

I worked in insurance for over five years. One of the more common reasons we had to send out HIPAA notification letters was due to relatives in the same city with similar or identical names getting claims processed under the wrong policy. These were very often two male relatives -- father and son, twin brothers, cousins. They sometimes even lived on the same street. There's also this story about two women with the sa…

Imposition of unambiguous, consistent and generationally persistent naming systems is a state fuction dating to Xia dynasty China (2070 B.C. -1600 B.C.), and were standardised in the Qin dynasty (221 B.C. -206 B.C.) as Xing Shi.

https://21chineseculture.com/origins-of-chinese-surnames/

It's also a major theme of James C. Scott's Seeing Like a State, though he doesn't trace the practice back that far.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Like_a_State

Re: Why we don't use Galileo's last name (2009)

#57

Post by wirrbel » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 7:24 AM UTC

camillomiller wrote: post #50

In Italy it’s quite common to go with Galileo Galilei, I would say we use name surname most of the time when we mention him. Maybe it has to do also with how it rolls out of the tongue nicely for us.

In German I think we also use Galilei more then Galileo.

Re: Why we don't use Galileo's last name (2009)

#58

Post by thaumasiotes » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 7:24 AM UTC

Bayart wrote: post #33

School-Cotton wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some Western European cultures (Portuguese and Spanish, and thereby Latin American), most people have two last names. When dealing with automated systems in other countries, it causes all manner of problems!

Or having to give your « middle name » in the Anglosphere ! Try explaining you have three to a clerk...

Is it harder than just saying "I have three middle names"? It's not exactly a foreign concept; it is normal for white Americans to have more than one, though not especially common.

Re: Why we don't use Galileo's last name (2009)

#59

Post by blablabla123 » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 7:26 AM UTC

Actually in German the transformations named after him are referred by his last name. (Galilei-Tranformation/Galilei-Invarianz) But in English they are usually called Galilean transformations.

Re: Why we don't use Galileo's last name (2009)

#60

Post by gus_massa » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 7:38 AM UTC

Bayart wrote: post #33

School-Cotton wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some Western European cultures (Portuguese and Spanish, and thereby Latin American), most people have two last names. When dealing with automated systems in other countries, it causes all manner of problems!

Or having to give your « middle name » in the Anglosphere ! Try explaining you have three to a clerk...

Note that the convention of what is your given name and what is your family name, and how they are inherited are different that the convention in USA. This add a lot of confusion when someone moves and need to fill paperwork. Using a "|" to separate your given name(s) and your family name(s):

---

Common pattern in USA:

Father: X Y | Z

Mother: A B | C

Your name: R C | Z

---

Spain/most of Latin America:

Father: X | Y Z

Mother: A | B C

Your name: R | Y B

---

Argentina:

Father: X Y | Z

Mother: A B | C

Your name: R S | Z